Part 45
CASTILHO, ANTONIO FELICIANO DE (1800-1875), Portuguese man of letters, was born at Lisbon. He lost his sight at the age of six, but the devotion of his brother Augusto, aided by a retentive memory, enabled him to go through his school and university course with success; and he acquired an almost complete mastery of the Latin language and literature. His first work of importance, the _Cartas de Echo e Narciso_ (1821), belongs to the pseudo-classical school in which he had been brought up, but his romantic leanings became apparent in the _Primavera_ (1822) and in _Amor e Melancholia_ (1823), two volumes of honeyed and prolix bucolic poetry. In the poetic legends _A noite de Castello_ (1836) and _Cuimes do bardo_ (1838) Castilho appeared as a full-blown Romanticist. These books exhibit the defects and qualities of all his work, in which lack of ideas and of creative imagination and an atmosphere of artificiality are ill compensated for by a certain emotional charm, great purity of diction and melodious versification. Belonging to the didactic and descriptive school, Castilho saw nature as all sweetness, pleasure and beauty, and he lived in a dreamland of his imagination. A fulsome epic on the succession of King John VI. brought him an office of profit at Coimbra. On his return from a stay in Madeira, he founded the _Revista Universal Lisbonense_, in imitation of Herculano's _Panorama_, and his profound knowledge of the Portuguese classics served him well in the introduction and notes to a very useful publication, the _Livraria Classica Portugueza_ (1845-1847, 25 vols.), while two years later he established the "Society of the Friends of Letters and the Arts." A study on Camoens and treatises on metrification and mnemonics followed from his pen. His praiseworthy zeal for popular instruction led him to take up the study of pedagogy, and in 1850 he brought out his _Leitura Repentina_, a method of reading which was named after him, and he became government commissary of the schools which were destined to put it into practice. Going to Brazil in 1854, he there wrote his famous "Letter to the Empress." Though Castilho's lack of strong individuality and his over-great respect for authority prevented him from achieving original work of real merit, yet his translations of Anacreon, Ovid and Virgil and the _Chave do Enigma_, explaining the romantic incidents that led to his first marriage with D. Maria de Baena, a niece of the satirical poet Tolentino, and a descendant of Antonio Ferreira, reveal him as a master of form and a purist in language. His versions of Goethe's _Faust_ and Shakespeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream_, made without a knowledge of German and English, scarcely added to his reputation. When the Coimbra question arose in 1865, Garrett was dead and Herculano had ceased to write, leaving Castilho supreme, for the moment, in the realm of letters. But the youthful Anthero de Quental withstood his claim to direct the rising generation and attacked his superannuated leadership, and after a fierce war of pamphlets Castilho was dethroned. The rise of Joao de Deus reduced him to a secondary position in the Portuguese Parnassus, and when he died ten years later much of his former fame had preceded him to the tomb.
See also "Memorias de Castilho" in the _Instituto_ of Coimbra; Innocencio da Silva in _Diccionario bibliographico Portuguez_, i. 130 and viii. 132: Latino Coelho's study in the _Revista contemporanea de Portugal e Brazil_, vols. i. and ii.; Dr Theophilo Braga, _Historia do Romantismo_ (Lisbon, 1880). (E. Pr.)
CASTILLEJO, CRISTOBAL DE (1490-1556), Spanish poet, was born at Ciudad Rodrigo in 1490. In 1518 he left Spain with Ferdinand of Austria, afterwards emperor, whose private secretary he eventually became. While residing at Vienna in 1528-1530 he wrote the _Historia de Piramo y Tisbe_, and dedicated it to Anna von Schaumberg, with whom he had a platonic love-affair. He seems to have visited Venice, to have been neglected by his patron, to have fallen ill in 1540, and to have passed his last years in poverty. He died on the 12th of June 1556, and was buried at Vienna. Castillejo's poems are interesting, not merely because of their intrinsic excellence, but also as being the most powerful protest against the metrical innovations imported from Italy by Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega. He adheres to the native _quintillas_ or to the _coplas de pie quebrado_, and only abandons these traditional forms when he indulges in caustic parody of the new school--as in the lines _Contra los que dejan los metros castellanos_. He excels by virtue of his charming simplicity and his ingenious wit, always keen, sometimes licentious, never brutal. The urbane gaiety of his occasional poems is delightfully spontaneous, and the cynical humour which informs the _Dialogo de las condiciones de las mujeres_ and the _Dialogo de la vida de la corte_ is impregnated with the Renaissance spirit. Castillejo is the Clement Marot of Spain. His plays are lost; the best text of his verses is that printed at Madrid in 1792.
CASTILLO SOLORZANO, ALONSO DE (1584?-1647?), Spanish novelist and playwright, is stated to have been baptized at Tordesillas near Valladolid on 1st October 1584. Nothing is known of his youth, and he is next heard of at Madrid in 1619 as a man of literary tastes. While in the service of the marquis de Villar, he issued his first work, _Donaires del Parnaso_ (1624-1625), two volumes of humorous poems; his _Tardes entretenidas_ (1625) and _Jornadas alegres_ (1626) proved that he was a novelist by vocation. Shortly afterwards he joined the household of the marquis de los Velez, viceroy of Valencia, and published in quick succession three clever picaresque novels: _La Nina de los embustes, Teresa de Manzanares_ (1634), _Las Aventuras del Bachiller Trapaza_ (1637), and a continuation entitled _La Garduna de Sevilla y Anzuelo de las bolsas_ (1642). To these shrewd cynical stories he owes his reputation. He followed the marquis de los Velez in his disastrous campaign in Catalonia, and accompanied him to Rome, where the defeated general was sent as ambassador. Castillo Solorzano's death occurred (probably at Palermo) before 1648, but the exact date is uncertain. His prolonged absence from Madrid prevented him from writing as copiously for the stage as he would otherwise have done; but he was popular as a playwright both at home and abroad. His _Marques del Cigarral_ and _El Mayorazgo figuron_ are the sources respectively of Scarron's _Don Jophet d'Armenie_ and _L'Heritier ridicule_. Among his numerous remaining works may be mentioned _Las Harpias en Madrid_ (1633), _Fiestas del Jardin_ (1634), _Los Alivios de Casandra_ (1640) and the posthumous _Quinta de Laurel_ (1649); the witty observation of these books forms a singular contrast to the prim devotion of his _Sagrario de Valencia_ (1635). His versatility and graceful style deserve the highest praise. (J. F.-K.)
CASTLE (Lat. _castellum_, a fort, diminutive of _castra_, a camp; Fr. _chateau_ and _chatel_), a small self-contained fortress, usually of the middle ages, though the term is sometimes used of prehistoric earthworks (e.g. Hollingbury Castle, Maiden Castle), and sometimes of citadels (e.g. the castles of Badajoz and Burgos) and small detached _forts d'arret_ in modern times. It is also often applied to the principal mansion of a prince or nobleman, and in France (as _chateau_) to any country seat, this use being a relic of the feudal age. Under its twofold aspect of a fortress and a residence, the medieval castle is inseparably connected with the subjects of fortification (see FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT) and architecture (q.v.). An account of Roman and pre-Roman _castella_ in Britain will be found under BRITAIN.
The word "castle" (_castel_) was introduced into English shortly before the Norman Conquest to denote a type of fortress, then new to the country, brought in by the Norman knights whom Edward the Confessor had sent for to defend Herefordshire against the inroads of the Welsh. Richard's castle, of which the earthworks remain and which has given its name to a parish, was erected at this period on the border of Herefordshire and Shropshire by Richard Fitz Scrob. The essential feature of this type was a circular mound of earth surrounded by a dry ditch and flattened at the top. Around the crest of its summit was placed a timber palisade. This moated mound was styled in French _motte_ (latinized _mota_), a word still common in French place-names. It is clearly depicted at the time of the Conquest in the Bayeux tapestry, and was then familiar on the mainland of western Europe. A description of this earlier castle is given in the life of John, bishop of Terouanne (_Acta Sanctorum_, quoted by G.T. Clark, _Medieval Mil. Architecture_):--"The rich and the noble of that region being much given to feuds and bloodshed, fortify themselves ... and by these strongholds subdue their equals and oppress their inferiors. They heap up a mound as high as they are able, and dig round it as broad a ditch as they can.... Round the summit of the mound they construct a palisade of timber to act as a wall.... Inside the palisade they erect a house, or rather a citadel, which looks down on the whole neighbourhood." St John, bishop of Terouanne, died in 1130, and this castle of Merchem, built by "a lord of the town many years before" may be taken as typical of the practice of the 11th century. But in addition to the mound, the citadel of the fortress, there was usually appended to it a bailey or basecourt (and sometimes two) of semilunar or horseshoe shape, so that the mound stood _a cheval_ on the line of the enceinte. The rapidity and ease with which it was possible to construct castles of this type made them characteristic of the Conquest period in England and of the Anglo-Norman settlements in Wales, Ireland and the Scottish lowlands. In later days a stone wall replaced the timber palisade and produced what is known as the shell-keep, the type met with in the extant castles of Berkeley, Alnwick and Windsor.
[Illustration: Section From Clark's _Medieval Military Architecture_, by permission of Bernard Quaritch.
FIG. 1.--Plan of Laughton en-le-Morthen.]
But the Normans introduced also two other types of castle. The one was adopted where they found a natural rock stronghold which only needed adaptation, as at Clifford, Ludlow, the Peak and Exeter, to produce a citadel; the other was a type wholly distinct, the high rectangular tower of masonry, of which the Tower of London is the best-known example, though that of Colchester was probably constructed in the 11th century also. But the latter type belongs rather to the more settled conditions of the 12th century when haste was not a necessity, and in the first half of which the fine extant keeps of Hedingham and Rochester were erected. These towers were originally surrounded by palisades, usually on earthen ramparts, which were replaced later by stone walls. The whole fortress thus formed was styled a castle, but sometimes more precisely "tower and castle," the former being the citadel, and the latter the walled enclosure, which preserved more strictly the meaning of the Roman _castellum_.
Reliance was placed by the engineers of that time simply and solely on the inherent strength of the structure, the walls of which defied the battering-ram, and could only be undermined at the cost of much time and labour, while the narrow apertures were constructed to exclude arrows or flaming brands.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Vertical section of rectangular Norman Keep (Tower of London).]
[Illustration: From Oman's _History of the Art of War_, by permission of Methuen & Co.
Fig. 3.--Berkeley Castle, late Norman Shell-Keep.]
[Illustration: From Oman's _History of the Art of War._
FIG. 4.--Krak-des-Chevaliers: Plan.]
At this stage the crusades, and the consequent opportunities afforded to western engineers of studying the solid fortresses of the Byzantine empire, revolutionized the art of castle-building, which henceforward follows recognized principles. Many castles were built in the Holy Land by the crusaders of the 12th century, and it has been shown (Oman, _Art of War: the Middle Ages_, p. 529) that the designers realized, first, that a second line of defences should be built within the main enceinte, and a third line or keep inside the second line; and secondly, that a wall must be flanked by projecting towers. From the Byzantine engineers, through the crusaders, we derive, therefore, the cardinal principle of the mutual defence of all the parts of a fortress. The _donjon_ of western Europe was regarded as the fortress, the outer walls as accessory defences; in the East each envelope was a fortress in itself, and the keep became merely the last refuge of the garrison, used only when all else had been captured. Indeed the keep, in several crusader castles, is no more than a tower, larger than the rest, built into the enceinte and serving with the rest for its flanking defence, while the fortress was made strongest on the most exposed front. The idea of the flanking towers (which were of a type very different from the slight projections of the shell-keep and rectangular tower) soon penetrated to Europe, and Alnwick Castle (1140-1150) shows the influence of the new system. But the finest of all castles of the middle ages was Richard Coeur de Lion's fortress of Chateau Gaillard (1197) on the Seine near Les Andelys. Here the innermost ward was protected by an elaborate system of strong appended defences, which included a strong _tete-de-pont_ covering the Seine bridge (see Clark, i. 384, and Oman, p. 533). The castle stood upon high ground and consisted of three distinct enceintes or wards besides the keep, which was in this case merely a strong tower forming part of the innermost ward. The donjon was rarely defended _a outrance_, and it gradually sank in importance as the outer "wards" grew stronger. Round instead of rectangular towers were now becoming usual, the finest examples of their employment as keeps being at Conisborough in England and at Coucy in France. Against the relatively feeble siege artillery of the 13th century a well-built fortress was almost proof, but the mines and the battering ram of the attack were more formidable, and it was realized that corners in the stonework of the fortress were more vulnerable than a uniform curved surface. Chateau Gaillard fell to Philip Augustus in 1204 after a strenuous defence, and the success of the assailants was largely due to the wise and skilful employment of mines. An angle of the noble keep of Rochester was undermined and brought down by John in 1215.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Krak-des-Chevaliers: View.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Chateau Gaillard.
A. _High Angle Tower_ B.B. _Smaller Side Towers_ C.C. D.D. _Corner Towers_ E. _Outer Enceinte, or Lower Court_ F. _The Well_ G.H. _Buildings in the Lower Court_ I. _The Moat_ K. _Entrance Gate_ L. _The Counterscarp_ M. _The Keep_ N. _The Escarpment_ O. _Postern Tower_ P. _Postern Gate_ R.R. _Parapet Walls_ S. _Gate from the Escarpment_ T.T. _Flanking Towers_ V. _Outer Tower_ X. _Connecting Wall_ Y. _The Stockade in the River_ Z.Z. _The Great Ditches_]
The next development was the extension of the principle of successive lines of defence to form what is called the "concentric" castle, in which each ward was placed wholly within another which enveloped it; places thus built on a flat side (e.g. Caerphilly Castle) became for the first time more formidable than strongholds perched upon rocks and hills such as Chateau Gaillard, where the more exposed parts indeed possessed many successive lines of defence, but at other points, for want of room, it was impossible to build more than one or, at most, two walls. In these cases, the fall of the inner ward by surprise, escalade, _vive force_, or even by regular siege (as was sometimes feasible), entailed the fall of the whole castle.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Coucy: Plan.]
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Coucy: View.]
The adoption of the concentric system precluded any such mischance, and thus, even though siege-engines improved during the 13th and 14th centuries, the defence, by the massive strength of the concentric castle in some cases, by natural inaccessibility of position in others, maintained itself superior to the attack during the latter middle ages. Its final fall was due to the introduction of gunpowder as a propellant. "In the 14th century the change begins, in the 15th it is fully developed, in the 16th the feudal fastness has become an anachronism."
The general adoption of cannon placed in the hands of the central power a force which ruined the baronial fortifications in a few days of firing. The possessors of cannon were usually private individuals of the middle classes, from whom the prince hired the _materiel_ and the technical workmen. A typical case will be found in the history of Brandenburg and Prussia (Carlyle, _Frederick the Great_, bk. iii. ch. i.), the impregnable castle of Friesack, held by an intractable feudal noble, Dietrich von Quitzow, being reduced in two days by the elector Frederick. I. with "Heavy Peg" (_Faule Grete_) and other guns hired and borrowed (February 1414). The beginnings of orderly government in Brandenburg thus depended upon the guns, and the taking of Friesack is, in Carlyle's phrase, "a fact memorable to every Prussian man." In England, the earl of Warwick in 1464 reduced the strong fortress of Bamborough in a week, and in Germany, Franz von Sinkingen's stronghold of Landstuhl, formerly impregnable on its heights, was ruined in one day by the artillery of Philip of Hesse (1523). Very heavy artillery was used for such work, of course, and against lighter natures, some castles and even fortified country-houses or castellated mansions managed to make a stout stand even as late as the Great Rebellion in England.
[Illustration: From Clark's _Med. Mil. Arch._
FIG. 9.--Beaumaris Castle: Plan.]
[Illustration: From Clark's _Med. Mil. Arch._
FIG 10.--Beaumaris Castle--View.]
The castle thus ceases to be the fortress of small and ill-governing local magnates, and its later history is merged in that of modern fortification. But an interesting transitional type between the medieval stronghold and the modern fortress is found in the coast castles erected by Henry VIII., especially those at Deal, Sandown and Walmer (c. 1540), which played some part in the events of the 17th century, and of which Walmer Castle is still the official residence of the lord warden of the Cinque Ports. Viollet-le-Duc, in his _Annals of a Fortress_ (English trans.), gives a full and interesting account of the repeated renovations of the fortress on his imaginary site in the valley of the Doubs, the construction by Charles the Bold of artillery towers at the angles of the castle, the protection of the masonry by earthen outworks, boulevards and demi-boulevards, and, in the 17th century, the final service of the medieval walls and towers as a pure _enceinte de surete_. Here and there we find old castles serving as _forts d'arret_ or block-houses in mountain passes and defiles, and in some few cases, as at Dover, they formed the nucleus of purely military places of arms, but normally the castle falls into ruins, becomes a peaceful mansion, or is merged in the fortifications of the town which has grown up around it. In the _Annals of a Fortress_ the site of the feudal castle is occupied by the citadel of the walled town, for once again, with the development of the middle class and of commerce and industry, the art of the engineer came to be displayed chiefly in the fortification of cities. The baronial "castle" assumes _pari passu_ the form of a mansion, retaining indeed for long some capacity for defence, but in the end losing all military characteristics save a few which survived as ornaments. Examples of such castellated mansions are seen in Wingfield Manor, Derbyshire, and Hurstmonceaux, Sussex, erected in the 15th century, and nearly all older castles which survived were continually improved and altered to serve as residences. (C. F. A.)
_Influence of Castles in English History._--Such strongholds as existed in England at the time of the Norman Conquest seem to have offered but little resistance to William the Norman, who, in order effectually to guard against invasions from without as well as to awe his newly-acquired subjects, immediately began to erect castles all over the kingdom, and likewise to repair and augment the old ones. Besides, as he had parcelled out the lands of the English amongst his followers, they, to protect themselves from the resentment of the despoiled natives, built strongholds and castles on their estates, and these were multiplied so rapidly during the troubled reign of King Stephen that the "adulterine" (i.e. unauthorized) castles are said by one writer to have amounted to 1115.
[Illustration: From Oman's _History of the Art of War._
FIG. 11.--Caerphilly Castle. Plan.]
In the first instance, when the interest of the king and of his barons was identical, the former had only retained in his hands the castles in the chief towns of the shires, which were entrusted to his sheriffs or constables. But the great feudal revolts under the Conqueror and his sons showed how formidable an obstacle to the rule of the king was the existence of such fortresses in private hands, while the people hated them from the first for the oppressions connected with their erection and maintenance. It was, therefore, the settled policy of the crown to strengthen the royal castles and increase their number, while jealously keeping in check those of the barons. But in the struggle between Stephen and the empress Maud for the crown, which became largely a war of sieges, the royal power was relaxed and there was an outburst of castle-building, without permission, by the barons. These in many cases acted as petty sovereigns, and such was their tyranny that the native chronicler describes the castles as "filled with devils and evil men." These excesses paved the way for the pacification at the close of the reign, when it was provided that all unauthorized castles constructed during its course should be destroyed. Henry II., in spite of his power, was warned by the great revolt against him that he must still rely on castles, and the massive keeps of Newcastle and of Dover date from this period.
[Illustration: From Clark's _Med. Mil. Arch._
FIG. 12.--Caerphilly Castle. View.]